


Catching Your Breath

by 0Rocky41_7



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bonding, Dragon Age Kink Meme, Dwarf Culture & Customs, F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Naked Cuddling, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28987524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Rocky41_7/pseuds/0Rocky41_7
Summary: After the archdemon's defeat, Warden Aeducan and companions recuperate in Denerim castle. During a lazy morning, she discusses a dwarven custom with Zevran.
Relationships: Aeducan/Zevran Arainai, Female Aeducan/Zevran Arainai, Zevran Arainai/Female Warden, Zevran Arainai/Warden
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Catching Your Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Pure fluff for [this kink meme prompt](https://dragonage-kink.dreamwidth.org/80015.html?thread=302713487).

Letting them stay in the castle was the least Anora could do, given that it was Warden Aeducan’s hand that had put her on the throne, and done away with her potential competition, and with that in mind, the invitation was extended as long as Warden Aeducan and her guests wished to make use of it. Sereda had appeared eager to depart at her crowning as the Hero of Ferelden, but it seemed the long pursuit of the archdemon had caught up with all of them—for two days straight, they did little else but sleep.

That morning, Zevran had finally woken feeling _rested_ , but Sereda was still out cold, her sleeping bonnet slipping off, Queen Anora’s white sheets stark against the blue-black of her skin. Smiling at the way she sprawled over the bed, Zevran brushed a hand over her hair and rolled off the other side of the bed to find some quiet way to entertain himself.

Sereda felt like she had been sleeping for more than 48 hours, and she could very well keep going. Every time she started to shift back to consciousness, she remembered some other thing from the last year that had exhausted her, and collapsed back into unconsciousness. The thing that finally galled her to open her eyes was realizing Zevran’s side of the bed was empty.

_Stone…what hour is it?_ she wondered as she lifted her head from the pillows. “Groggy” was not nearly strong enough to encapsulate how disoriented she felt, so that when she saw Zevran busying his hands over a tiny, foldable table it took her a moment to register the scene.

“Good morning, my demon-slaying, kingdom-saving, queen-crowning ex-princess,” he said, with a voice far to chipper to have woken recently. Sereda dropped her face back down into a pillow with a groan.

“What _time_ is it?” she finally got out intelligibly.

“Oh, sometime after noon, I think,” Zevran replied. “Does it really matter?”

Through the cobwebs of Sereda’s mind, she decided that no, it didn’t, really. She drew in a long, deep breath and rolled onto her back, a sliver of her mind marveling over the fact that she was still taking in air, and not bumping pints with the ancestors.

“Coffee?” Zevran’s query made her push herself up enough to see him, and realize what he had been doing on the tiny table. He held up a mug and she nodded, then squinted her eyes at him. He was nearly naked, except for—

“Are those my smalls?”

Zevran flashed a cheeky grin, and poured another coffee, adding sugar and cream to whatever specifications existed in his mind.

“I was going to take your shirt, but the sleeves are too short.” The smalls, by contrast, were wide enough in the hip and thigh to hang loosely off Zevran’s narrow frame, drawstring drawn tightly to keep them in place. He sashayed over to the bed, and handed her the mug he had not doctored—to her pleasure, the coffee was straight black, just the way she liked it (it made Zevran gag, in a way she thought was terribly exaggerated, and he even wrinkled his nose handing it over, as if the mere scent of it was offensive).

“And?” She held out her free hand, making a grasping motion with her fingers. Zevran heaved a long-suffering sigh, and jerked loose the drawstring on the shorts, stepping out of them and flicking them over to her, all without setting down his coffee. “Thank you.” She put her own mug down to wriggle back into the smalls, then settled cross-legged on the bed, hands wrapped around the steaming mug. “I shall endeavor to find you something else to wear,” she said, as Zevran joined her on the bed, not troubling himself to find something else to wear.

Sereda’s eyes raked over him, noting the barely-scabbed wounds on his chest and arms, and the long slice on his left leg, still bandaged and troubling him more than he would admit. Throwing soldiers to the darkspawn was not something she was unaccustomed to, and her willingness to sacrifice had once made her one of King Endrin’s favorite military strategists, with a command of her own, so it surprised her how protective she had grown of her little band. Well—perhaps it was not so strange in regards to Zevran.

“Please, take in the view as long as you like,” Zevran said, leaning back on one hand to give her a better eyeful. Sereda snorted, and was only stopped from giving him a smack by the fact that they were both holding hot coffee.

“I was just thinking how handsome you’d be with a beard.”

“Tsk! How you wound!” he cried, rubbing his bare chin. “I cannot help my shortcomings.” Sereda snorted and took a big mouthful of coffee. She still felt like she was rinsing the ashes of Denerim off her tongue. “I’m sure I can find a way to make up for them,” he said, putting his mug down on the floor to throw himself over the bed, head in Sereda’s lap.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” she said, reaching down to trace her fingers along his smooth jawline. “There would be a great deal of talk among the nobility. Ah, but I’ve just remembered something!”

“What is it, dearest? Oh, have you found a solution?”

“I’ve just remembered I owe them nothing and I can do whatever I want.” She leaned over to press a clumsy kiss against Zevran’s lips, and felt him grin into the kiss.

“Isn’t that a nice feeling?” She raked a hand back through his silky blond hair and took another sip of coffee.

“Remarkable.” She sighed and glanced at the high windows of the bedroom, through which a sun of undetermined hour beamed through. Zevran’s eyes were on her, and she thought maybe she should say something else, but it felt like too much effort. Trying to broach what had happened the last week…no, it was too much, just now. She’d rather speak of empty, meaningless things, and come around to the rest in due time. Not _avoiding_ , she told herself, just _waiting_ for the right moment.

“Your hair is long enough to braid, though,” she said at last, lifting her mug.

“Oh?”

“Mm.” Gently, she ran her nails over his scalp, in the way that made his eyes slide shut in bliss, and he tilted his head back into her hand. “If you had a lieutenant, or a second, you might braid each other’s hair before battle,” she said, speaking of dwarven tradition and hinting at her past in a way she rarely did. “It is…a kind of intimacy. Trust.” Zevran’s eyes peeked open.

“Is this something you did in Orzammar?”

“I let my second, Gorim, do it for me on a few occasions when we ventured into the Deep Roads,” she said.

“And you were…close?”

“Not like that. But yes.” There was still a twinge of guilt in her breast for Gorim’s twin exile. He had served her well—he did not deserve to suffer with her. It had been surpassed by pride for the life he had made for himself there in Denerim, and now relief that he had survived the archdemon’s assault.

“But you did not return the favor?”

“I was his princess,” Sereda said. “The only hair I would have braided were my brothers’, and my father’s, and they never asked.” As always when speaking of her past and her family, Sereda spoke bluntly and factually, as if reciting a fable rather than speaking of her own life. “Sit up,” she said abruptly after a thoughtful pause, nudging Zevran’s shoulder with her knee. He complied, and she pressed her mug into his hands. “And hold still.”

She had to raise herself up on her knees to be able to reach his head properly, and his back was warm against her bare torso. Without preamble, she combed through his hair with her fingers, and began to part it. With a comb and a bit of grease she could have made something far neater, but she did not wish to trouble herself with delays, or searching out the items, so she tackled Zevran’s fine elven hair with just her hands.

He was unusually quiet, sitting neat and still for her as she began to weave his hair in the style he might have worn about the Diamond Quarter if he lived with her in Orzammar. Not for a day at the Proving arena, but for social calls, it would be quite appropriate.

“I am beginning to think you have an attraction to scandal,” he said after he had allowed her to work several minutes in silence.

“Perhaps I do. Perhaps I played the good daughter too long.” A soft sigh escaped Zevran’s lips, and she could see how relaxed his shoulders were as she gently tugged and scraped his hair into place. “Or perhaps it’s your influence.”

That made him laugh, and for a moment, Sereda closed her eyes and relished the sound. It had taken her time to see the grief under Zevran’s careless smiles, but now she took twice the pleasure in making those smiles genuine.

“I would like to think I could manage to topple a dwarven princess,” he said.

“Don’t get carried away,” she said. “I was fallen from grace before we met.”

“There is _always_ further to go, my love.” Sereda snorted and gave a little jerk on his hair, just enough to make him give an indignant yelp, and then a much lower sound. “Oh, is it that time already?” he purred, and Sereda bumped her knee into his back, less effectively than she’d hoped.

“Not until I finish this,” she said, and he did not balk about that. When she had finished, she sat down and admired her work. “There. You’re all ready to go socialize with the Harrowmonts and the Daces.” She thought he would get up then, to search out a mirror to have a look, but instead he just turned and captured her lips in a kiss so deep he pushed her back down on the bed.

“It’s perfect,” he said.

“You haven’t set eyes on it,” Sereda objected.

“It’s perfect,” he insisted. Sereda parted her lips to tell him he couldn’t possibly know until he looked, but the open genuineness in his eyes silenced her, and she lifted a hand to his cheek.

“Of course it is,” she said. “I would give you nothing less.” The weight of the battle washed over them again, and they decided that the day was best spent in their room, and that the rest of the world could wait a while long.

**Author's Note:**

> [On tumblr](https://imakemywings.tumblr.com/post/641320535912005632/just-a-quick-fill-for-this-prompt-for-some) | [On Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/2025553)


End file.
